Roller imprinter for pocket credit card

ABSTRACT

A hand-operated roller-platen type imprinting apparatus for imprinting an inserted business document form-set containing an MICR carbon sheet with machine-readable MICR code from an inserted printing plate such as a credit card containing the MICR code in relief. The roller platen is carried by a carriage over a flat printing bed and is eccentrically mounted therein to assume a printing position during the printing printing stroke and an upper nonprinting position during the return stroke. Rollers on the carriage engage the underside of the bed so that the vertical spacing of the roller platen is fixed during the printing stroke. The carriage is carried in a handle which is also independently mounted by rollers on the bed. The carriage is free to move vertically in the handle so that variations in the force applied to the handle will not affect the spacing of the roller platen.

United States Patent Bradford et al.

[54] ROLLER IMPRINTER FOR POCKET CREDIT CARD [72] Inventors: John Ramsey Bradford, Falmouth, Maine; William Gerry Goodwin, West Peabody,

[151 3,656,429 [4 1 Apr. 18, 1972 Primary Examiner-Clyde 1. Coughenour Attorney-Lee A. Strimbeck [57] ABSTRACT A hand-operated roller-platen type imprinting apparatus for imprinting an inserted business document form-set containing an MICR carbon sheet with machine-readable MICR code from an inserted printing plate such as a credit card containing the MlCR code in relief. The roller platen is carried by a carriage over a flat printing bed and is eccentrically mounted therein to assume a printing position during the printing printing stroke and an upper nonprinting position during the return stroke. Rollers on the carriage engage the underside of the bed so that the vertical spacing of the roller platen is fixed during the printing stroke. The carriage is carried in a handle which is also independently mounted by rollers on the bed. The carriage is free to move vertically in the handle so that variations in the force applied to the handle will not affect the spacing of the roller platen.

6 Claims, 3 Drawing Figures PATENTEDAPR 18 I972 SHEET 2 OF 3 INVENTORS JOHN. R. BRADFORD WILLIAM G. GOODWIN ATTORNEY PATENTEDAPR 18 I972 SHEET 3 BF 3 INVENTORS JOHN R. BRADFORD WILLIAM G. GOODWIN ATTORNEY PREAMBLE MICR encoding for making documents machine-readable has been in use for some time, especially with bank checks. The encoding is usually placed on the documents under controlled conditions as by off-set printing or typing with a special MICR-Mylar tape. MICR encoding in the field such as in point of sale" recorder using a credit card and a hand imprinter has not proved to be practical because of the unacceptable variations in the encoding from document to document.

Among other things, it has been found that the character of the MICR encoding in the field can be improved if the MICR characters on the printing plate or credit card are sharp and well-defined, embossed characters generally being unsatisfactory in this respect, and if the nature or the amount of pressure exerted by the imprinter can be maintained constant within narrow limits.

This invention is addressed to the latter problem.

This invention is equally applicable to the printing of OCR characters which must have the same clear, dark, well-formed nature as the MICR characters.

RELATED APPLICATIONS The following two applications filed simultaneously herewith and assigned to the same assignee are pertinent:

l. MICR Encoding with Credit Card and Formset (Magna 202) by Bradford and Stevenson describes one particular method of employing a credit card having the MICR code in reverse-reading mirror-image relief type, along with a certain formset such as could be used in the present invention. 2. MICR Imprinting Photo-Etched Credit Card (Magna 203) by Bradford describes a preferred way of making a MICR imprinting credit card.

PRIOR ART U.S. Pats. Nos. 3,018,725 and 3,272,120 illustrate hand imprinters of the type of interest here. U.S. Pat. No. 3,018,725 well describes the problems with which this invention is concerned and illustrates one method of raising the roller platen during the return stroke and the care that has been taken to assure accurate alignment of the roller platen.

U.S. Pat. No. 3,272,120 attempts to improve printing quality by the use of two roller platens, one of which is used to imprint only the MICR characters during one stroke and the other the non-critical printed matter during the other stroke of the hand imprinter.

U.S. Pats. Nos. 3,269,307, 3,232,230 and 3,242,859 show variations that have been made in hand imprinters to improve the quality of the MICR encoding.

All of these, however, when used as hand imprinters suffer from the disadvantage, inter alia, that variations in the hand force used tend to cause variations in the quality of the MICR encoding, i.e., they are susceptible to the strong man-weak woman effect.

U.S. Pat. No. 3,1 13,516 illustrates a suitable paper form-set THIS INVENTION This invention is an improved hand-operated, two stroke, flat bed roller platen imprinter for encoding a business docu ment with MICR code using a MICR carbon paper and a printing plate or credit card containing the MICR characters in relief. The roller platen is mounted on a carriage that moves along the length of the bed carrying the roller platen over the document, MICR carbon and printing plate. The roller platen is eccentrically mounted to assume one of two positions a close-spaced printing position during one stroke and a raised non-printing position during the other stroke. The carriage prevents rotational movement of the axis of the roller platen with respect to the bed such as yawing or skewing and maintains the vertical spacing of the roller platen from the bed by reason of stops, e.g., rollers, engaging tracks on the bottom of either side of the bed.

The carriage is slidably mounted in a handle which allows free vertical movement therebetween within limits, which handle also rides on the ,bed as by rollers such that any downward force on the handle is transferred directly to the bed and not to the roller platen via the carriage.

Thus the pressure exerted by the roller platen on a business document MICR carbon form-set and printing plate, both of predetermined thickness, is determined solely by the preadjustment of the spacing given by the carriage stops which ride against the underneath side of the printing bed.

The function of the present imprinter is such that flre nature, quality or condition of the credit card becomes less critical to the obtaining of acceptable imprinted MICR characters.

THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a top view of the imprinter.

FIG. 2 is a side view of the imprinter, and

FIG. 3 is an exploded isometric view of the carriage-handle construction.

Like parts have the same number in each of the drawings.

DESCRIPTION Referring to FIG. 2, the imprinter comprises a flat platen l, and handle 2, a roller platen carriage 3 and a roller platen or bed 4.

End walls 38 and 39 of carriage 3 fit into slots 5 and 6 of handle 2 and arevertically slidable thereinHandle 2 and carriage 3 fit onto flat platen 1 so that handle rollers 7,8,9 and 10 roll along the upper surface of the platen l. Slidable blocks 7a, 8a, 9a, and 10a of the handle engage the underside of the bed. The rollers 7, 8, 9 and 10 are supported by shafts 31 that function also to help connect slidable stops 7a, 8a, 9a and 10a and vertical supports 32 and 33 of the handle. Carriage rollers 14 and 15 engage the bottom surface of platen 1 and are adjustable to permit the roller platen spacing to be adjusted.

As shown in FIG. 1, a removable printing plate 20 is inserted on the upper surface of flat platen l and retained in position by permanent stops 21 and 22 and spring-loaded stops 23. A name plate 25 bearing the name of a merchant in raised letters is held permanently on the platen l. A paper form-set 24, shown by dotted lines, is placed thereover and is retained in position by means of permanent stops 21, 22 26 and 27.

The stops 26 and 27 are positioned so that a rotatable arm 30 contacts top surfaces 28 and 29 thereof when the handle 2 is moved across platen l.

Force on the printing plate 20 is regulated by the distance between roller platen 4 and rollers 14 and 15 rather than by the hand force used to operate handle 2. Rollers l4 and 15 restrain vertical movement of carriage 3 and thereby define its maximum vertical height above the carriage. Any other stop means including slidable blocks can be employed for this purpose, but rollers are preferred.

Roller platen 4 is mounted for rotation on shaft 35. The shaft 35 is eccentrically mounted on axles 36 and 37, held for rotation in bushings 36a and 370 respectively, which in turn are held in end walls 38 and 39 respectively, of the carriage.

When constructing the imprinter, the distance between the roller platen 4 and the flat platen l, for both the printing and non-printing positions of the roller platen 4, is regulated by ad justing rollers 14 and 15. Rollers l4 and 15 are mounted in eccentric bearings which can be rotated and fixed to set the desired distance between the platens 1 and 14. The distances are set so that the force exerted on the printing plate during the printing stroke is sufficient to print clear, dark characters without smudging and during the non-printing stroke is insufficient to effect printing.

In use, the distance between the rollers 14 and and roller platen 4 is regulated by the rotational position of eccentric shaft 35. As shown in FIG. 2, when the handle 2 is in position B, the shaft 35 is rotated to increase the distance between the roller platen 4 and the roller 15. When the handle 2 is in position A, the shaft 35 is rotated to minimize the distance between roller platen 4 and roller 15. This rotation is accomplished by a stop 41 which is fixed to shaft 35. Rotatable lever arm 30 is connected to stop 41 by being inserted therein at 42. Arm 30 first contacts permanent stop 26 during the printing stroke of handle 2 across the flat platen 1 and is forced backward, thereby effecting rotation of stop 41 and shaft 35, causing a shoulder 56 on the perimeter of stop 41 to rest against the underside of cross-member 40 of carriage 3. The perimeter of stop 41 is so shaped at 56 that during the forward stroke toward position A, the roller platen 4 is in its closest position to rollers 14 and 15 to effect substantial force on printing plate and on the return stroke to position B is in an elevated position given by shoulder 55 on stop 41 resting against the underside of member 40 to minimize or totally relieve the force on printing plate 20.

Referring to FIG. 2, when the handle is moved toward position A during the printing stroke, stop 41 is rotated, to the position shown at position A. The rotatable arm first contacts permanent stop 26 to rotate stop 41 and shaft so that the roller platen 4 is placed in its lowest position. The roller platen 4 passes over the printing plate 20 and in so doing, the slidable carriage 3 is forced upward to effect contact of rollers 14 and 15 with the bottom surface offlat platen 1.

When handle 2 is in position A, rotatable arm 30 is positioned within a depression 51 of stop 27. The outward motion of handle 2 is arrested by stop 52 on a horizontal support 53 affixed to bed 1. On the return stroke to position B, arm 30 contacts surface 54 of permanent stop 27, rotates stop 41 and places surface 55 in contact with member in the raised position shown at position B of handle 2. In this position, the eccentricity of the shaft 35 lifts the platen 4 to a higher position above the platen 1 than during the forward stroke. Thus, during the return stroke, when the platen 4 contacts the printing plate at 20, it is lifted so that the rollers 14 and 15 do not contact the bottom surface of platen 1 and there is little force exerted by the platen 4 on the printing plate 20. The stop arm 30 contacts permanent stop 26 but is prevented from rotating and thereby rotating stop 41 because of the flat surface 55 on stop 41 that contacts horizontal bar 40. Similarly, surface 56 on stop 41 prevents further rotation of the stop 41 and the axle 35 when the stop arm 30 contacts permanent stop 27 during the forward stroke.

As an alternative to the use of shoulders 55 and 56 to position stop 41, the stop can be made with an arcuate slot of about 90 in it facing end wall 38, and a fixed pin extending from end wall 38 and fitting in the slot can be used to arrest the motion of stop 41 in one or the other of its two fixed positrons.

The imprinter of this invention provides a substantial advantage because the force it exerts during printing is independent of the force exerted by the operator on the handle and because no printing is effected on the return stroke. This permits accurate and reproducable printing of MICR characters on the paper forms. The rotatable stop and shaft constructions generally are regulated so as to obtain a space of between 0.040 and 0.050 inches more or less between the roller platen and the printing plate during printing, depending upon the thickness of the paper form-set to be imprinted.

In use, the imprinter can be employed in a system for printing paper form-sets containing a suitable carbon paper with machine-readable characters such as OCR or MICR characters. A typical surface configuration for the printing plate is shown in FIG. 1. The printing plate 20 has raised characters comprising MICR characters 60, the holders name 61, a numerical code 62 and the expiration date 63. It is to be understood that the raised characters on the card can contain any desired information including the card holders signature. The printing plate 20 1S maintained in position during printing by permanent stop 21 and 22 and spring-loaded stops 23. The spring loaded stops 23 are biased upwardly and toward the permanent stops 21 and 22 to stabilize the plate.

What is claimed is:

1. An imprinting apparatus comprising a flat platen, a roller platen carriage reciprocally movable along said flat platen in a fixed path, a roller platen rotatably mounted on a rotatable eccentric shaft mounted in said carriage above the flat platen, a handle housing said carriage, riding on said flat platen and adapted to effect movement thereof along said fiat platen in said fixed path, said carriage being vertically slidable in said handle, means for rotating said shaft to move said roller platen between a printing position and a non-printing position, and means on said carriage engaging said flat platen to restrain vertical movement on said carriage relative to said flat platen when said roller platen is in the printing position.

2. The imprinting apparatus of claim 1 wherein said means for rotating said shaft comprises a lever arm extending from a rotatable cam on said shaft, said arm being adapted to contact stop means on said flat platen during the reciprocal movement of said handle along said fiat platen and effect rotation of said cam.

3. The imprinting apparatus of claim 1 wherein said roller platen is in a printing position only while being moved in one direction along said flat platen.

4. The imprinting apparatus of claim 1 wherein the means to restrain vertical movement of the carriage comprises rollers in contact with the bottom surface of said flat platen.

5. In a flatbed roller platen imprinting apparatus adapted to imprint an inserted business document form-set containing a MICR carbon sheet with data from an inserted printing plate containing said data in relief, wherein said apparatus includes a fiat bed, a roller platen, a carriage therefor adapted to move said roller platen over said bed in a printing stroke and to return the same to the starting position in a return stroke, a handle for said carriage adapted to cause said carriage to make said strokes, and height setting means adapted to effect pressural contact between said roller platen, form-set, and printing plate during said printing stroke and to lift said roller platen therefrom during said return stroke; the improvement comprising: height setting means associated with said carriage and adapted to control the spacing of said roller platen from said bed during said printing stroke, including means engaging said bed to permit longitudinal movement of said carriage therealong but preventing vertical movement relative thereto, said roller platen being mounted in said carriage perpendicular to the line of movement thereof and parallel to said bed and adapted to assume at least two fixed positions a printing position during said printing stroke and an upper nonprinting position during said return stroke, said handle being mounted on said bed for free movement along the longitudinal axis thereof and at a fixed spaced distance therefrom regardless of the force placed on said handle, said carriage being mounted in said handle in a manner to permit free movement therein perpendicular to the surface of said bed but being constrained thereby from relative rotational movement with respect to said bed either as skewing or such as to vary the vertical spacing of said roller platen from said bed.

6. The improvement of claim 5 including a rotatable axle about which said roller platen freely rotates and eccentrically mounted with respect to said carriage, a cam affixed to said axle, a lever arm connected to said cam and stops on said flat bed adapted to activate said lever arm, said cam and arm adapted to rotate and to place said axle and roller platen during said printing stroke in said printing position and in a raised non-printing position during said return stroke. 

1. An imprinting apparatus comprising a flat platen, a roller platen carriage reciprocally movable along said flat platen in a fixed path, a roller platen rotatably mounted on a rotatable eccentric shaft mounted in said carriage above the flat platen, a handle housing said carriage, riding on said flat platen and adapted to effect movement thereof along said flat platen in said fixed path, said carriage being vertically slidable in said handle, means for rotating said shaft to move said roller platen between a printing position and a non-printing position, and means on said carriage engaging said flat platen to restrain vertical movement on said carriage relative to said flat platen when said roller platen is in the printing position.
 2. The imprinting apparatus of claim 1 wherein said means for rotating said shaft comprises a lever arm extending from a rotatable cam on said shaft, said arm being adapted to contact stop means on said flat platen during the reciprocal movement of said handle along said flat platen and effect rotation of said cam.
 3. The imprinting apparatus of claim 1 wherein said roller platen is in a printing position only while being moved in one direction along said flat platen.
 4. The imprinting apparatus of claim 1 wherein the means to restrain vertical movement of the carriage comprises rollers in contact with the bottom surface of said flat platen.
 5. In a flat bed roller platen imprinting apparatus adapted to imprint an inserted business document form-set containing a MICR carbon sheet with data from an inserted printing plate containing said data in relief, wherein said apparatus includes a flat bed, a roller platen, a carriage therefor adapted to move said roller platen over said bed in a printing stroke and to return the same to the starting position in a return stroke, a handle for said carriage adapted to cause said carriage to make said strokes, and height setting means adapted to effect pressural contact between said roller platen, form-set, and printing plate during said printing stroke and to lift said roller platen therefroM during said return stroke; the improvement comprising: height setting means associated with said carriage and adapted to control the spacing of said roller platen from said bed during said printing stroke, including means engaging said bed to permit longitudinal movement of said carriage therealong but preventing vertical movement relative thereto, said roller platen being mounted in said carriage perpendicular to the line of movement thereof and parallel to said bed and adapted to assume at least two fixed positions - a printing position during said printing stroke and an upper non-printing position during said return stroke, said handle being mounted on said bed for free movement along the longitudinal axis thereof and at a fixed spaced distance therefrom regardless of the force placed on said handle, said carriage being mounted in said handle in a manner to permit free movement therein perpendicular to the surface of said bed but being constrained thereby from relative rotational movement with respect to said bed either as skewing or such as to vary the vertical spacing of said roller platen from said bed.
 6. The improvement of claim 5 including a rotatable axle about which said roller platen freely rotates and eccentrically mounted with respect to said carriage, a cam affixed to said axle, a lever arm connected to said cam and stops on said flat bed adapted to activate said lever arm, said cam and arm adapted to rotate and to place said axle and roller platen during said printing stroke in said printing position and in a raised non-printing position during said return stroke. 